Dan Lynch, who has helmed Greensboro’s economic development efforts for the past decade, announced Wednesday that he’d retire at the end of this year, capping a 28-year economic development career. I caught up with Lynch to talk about the decision, his biggest “win” and the one that got away.

What would you consider your biggest win?
It takes a whole team of people to land anything, but I would say for our community the biggest project is Honda Aircraft Co. I don’t think we fully understand or appreciate the impact that that company and that project will have on Greensboro, the Triad, and even the state of North Carolina over the next 15, 20, 50 years. You hear a lot of talk about automobile assembly facilities, and those are important, but we’re already making jet aircraft in Greensboro. In 2006, when they decided to make the plan, we were invited to participate in the RFP. Since then, they’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars; they have over 900 employees making more than $80,000 (a year) on average. If I got an RFP today for that kind of project, it would be the biggest thing in the history of Greensboro. We’re at the very beginning of a brand-new product life cycle. You almost want to pinch yourself and say, ‘we’re seeing something start from the very beginning here in Greensboro.’”

The project that gave you the most sleepless nights?
Probably FedEx Express; that’s the hub at the airport. There was a lot of acrimony around that, a lot of upset neighbors. People did not want the runway built, they did not want FedEx there. That predates the Greensboro Partnership; I was actually hired by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce for more of a community relations role did that for about 18 months. There were just a lot of hateful letters to the editor, and a lot of mean-spirited people. Not all of them, of course. And I understand; they felt like they were sticking up for health and home and family. But in the middle of the night I’d get threatening calls: ‘we’re going to burn down your house,’ or they’d just laugh. Mean calls. We’d go to public hearings and almost fisticuffs would break out. They made the Trader Joe’s folks look like a garden party.

What’s the one project Greensboro missed out on that bothers you the most?
In hindsight, you’re going to laugh, but at the time it would have been Dell Computer. We didn’t know that four years later Dell was going to be gone, but that was one we worked on longer than Boeing. Boeing was very short but very intense; Dell was intense and a lot longer, probably about five or six months long. At the time, that was the one we thought got away. One that’s not here that’s active is the Dassault Falcon. That project spanned four years; it ended up in Little Rock, Ark. but we were so close. We have one original equipment manufacturer here in Honda, if we had another OEM — all of a sudden you’re building this formidable cluster. But Dassault actually helped; I’ve been in meetings with aircraft manufacturers that know Dassault was way down the path here. That gives you credibility.

What advice would you offer the person who follows you in this post?
They will be a seasoned professional and they’ll understand the economic development process. What I would tell them is we just have an outstanding support team here, and to really feel comfortable relying on the team that’s in place. They all have this core desire to make Greensboro and the Triad a more successful place. Whoever comes in will understand that this community’s jobs disintegrated over 15 years, and we’re in the process of building it back. It will probably take another 15 years, or maybe longer. It just doesn’t happen overnight That person will have to be a little patient as well, and sometimes there’s not a lot of patience by the elected leadership.

One thing you would do differently?
Greensboro does not have a national and international presence. Charlotte does in spades, and so does Raleigh. We are not on the tip of anybody’s tongue. If we want that presence, it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of money because those things don’t just happen overnight. We as a community need to come together — this will be the city, the county, the Partnership, Downtown Greensboro Inc., the Greensboro Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, a lot of people have to be involved — because you have to craft the message, and then once you develop that message, you’ve got to have that money for national and international marketing, which is phenomenally expensive.

You’ve had a long career and have hit retirement age, but there will surely be those who question whether some of the recent scrutiny of the Greensboro Partnership is influencing the timing of your retirement. Is it?
No. In this business, you deal with that all the time. It never got anywhere what it was like back in the FedEx days. So to talk about scrutiny and name-calling and criticism — it’s the position. It’s like being a coach; you don’t take it personally. People want everything all the time, and you get people with unrealistic expectations who don’t understand the process.

So what’s the next step?
For me personally, I’ll work through the rest of this year, take some time to kind of decompress, and then see what is out there. The beauty of this is I don’t know what the next chapter’s going to look like, so it’ll be fun getting there. I’m very fortunate to be in a position where I can pick and choose what I want to do. If I want to do volunteer work, I can do that. After 43 years — 15 years in law enforcement, which is pretty stressful, and then 28 years of doing this, I’d say I’m in a good place for a change.

Catherine Carlock covers commercial and residential real estate, construction, economic development and retailing and restaurants. Contact her at 336-370-2918.

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